George ​A Documentary Portrait of George Maciunas

Short Synopsis

In 1961 Lithuanian American artist and impresario George Maciunas established the avant-garde art movement Fluxus. ​George​details the rise of Fluxus following a sensationalized tour of “concerts” in Europe in 1962, and continuing in New York for most of the 1960s and ’70s. During this time Maciunas was converting the dying industrial buildings of Soho into a network of artists’ lofts, creating one of the first official real estate co-ops of artist-owned buildings. Maciunas’s life and legacy—as recounted by artists of his generation, including Yoko Ono and Jonas Mekas—ignited debates that remain pivotal to artists working today.

Long Synopsis

George​is a documentary portrait of Lithuanian American artist, graphic designer, architect and impresario George Maciunas, who in 1961 established the avant-garde art movement Fluxus, an international association of artists working in varied disciplines.

George​begins with Maciunas’s early life and his family’s migration from war-torn Lithuania following World War II and relocation in the United States. His varied studies most notably in art history as a young adult in New York inspired the political and aesthetic foundations which soon defined his vision of Fluxus as an art movement, inspired by earlier art historical movements most specifically Dada and the LEF in the Soviet Union.

Beyond his naming of it, Maciunas’s definition of Fluxus included his penning a manifesto, designing a graphic identity, and maintaining lists of artists in or out of the movement that he envisioned as “purging the world of dead art.” His militancy was met with varying degrees of

embrace and rebellion by fellow artists working in the varied artistic landscape of the 1960s, and this lively contestation continues today. The question “what is Fluxus?” begins to take perpetual dimensions, as explored by the near 40 artists and scholars located worldwide in discussion throughout ​George​, revealing the paradoxical structure of Fluxus and Maciunas himself.

Illuminated by an extensive collection of re-animated media from various archival sources, George​details the rise of Fluxus following a widely sensationalized tour of concert “events” in Western Europe in 1962, continuing in New York as its headquarters for most of the 60s and 70s. This positions where Maciunas and Fluxus associated artists staged street performances, created stores for the distribution of their influential artist multiples (Flux “boxes” designed by Maciunas), and maintained collaborative correspondence with artists worldwide, many of whom he influenced to relocate to New York from Japan and Eastern Europe.

Meanwhile, Maciunas’s largest scale project was underway as he began converting the dying industrial buildings of Soho into a network of artists lofts to create the Flux House Cooperative, the first real estate co-op of artist owned buildings in downtown New York.

Fueled by his organizational compulsion and by his desire to create structured and efficient artist communities, George’s Flux House project went as far as an attempt to establish a Flux Colony on a remote island in the Caribbean, Ginger Island. The failed endeavor to survey the uninhabited island in 1969 is discussed by the artists accompanying Maciunas on this humorously ill-fated trip, as well as by a laughter-filled audio recording of Maciunas himself.

Though the Flux House utopian vision succeeded in benefitting hundreds of artists by providing sustained shelter, studio space, and community, Maciunas’s quintessential defiance of bureaucracy would find him in an ongoing battle with the Attorney General of New York, among other conflicts including mounting financial debt and the mafia. As George characteristically resisted with subversive humor by converting these dangers into Fluxus art pieces, he leaves New York City for Western Massachusetts in 1977 as these troubles escalate, as are his life long health problems. His untimely death from liver cancer at age 47 occurs two years later, but not before he gets married Fluxus style and aspires to start yet another artist colony at his new home on a sprawling rural horse farm estate.

While Maciunas’s life events unfold in ​George​as detailed by fellow artists of his generation, the film engages debates not at all unfamiliar by artists working today; how do art and artists define relationships to political ideologies, capital exchange, communication technologies, globalism, collectivity and community? And how do these relationships function in a constant state of “flux”? The discussion includes interviews with many notable artists connected to the Fluxus genesis, including Yoko Ono, Nam June Paik, Jonas Mekas and many others.